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Fiction and Reality: text and image in two
novels by Elisabeth Werner and Carolina
Invernizio.
Giorgo Bacci
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to highlight, through the analysis of two best-selling novels published in Italy (Spazzacamino, 1911, and Buona fortuna!, 1922), some key issues concerning the reception of texts and images. In particular, we will focus on the relationship between writing and illustration, author and illustrator, but also between volume, images and readers, seeing how the images could, from time to time, agree or disagree with the written text, covering a vital role in the area of reception, directing the reader toward a specific socio-political interpretation.
Résumé
Le but de cet article est de mettre en lumière, à travers l’analyse de deux romans à grand succès publiés en Italie (Spazzacamino, 1911, et Buona fortuna!, 1922), certains des enjeux de la relation qui se tisse entre texte et image au sein d’un ouvrage illustré. Nous nous concentrerons plus spécifiquement sur le rapport entre le texte et les illustrations qui l’accompagnent, celui entre auteur et illustrateur, mais également celui entre le livre, les images et le lecteur. Il s’agira d’envisager la manière dont les images peuvent, par moments, être en harmonie ou, au contraire, en discordance avec le texte et, ce faisant, de souligner le rôle crucial des illustrations dans la réception d’une œuvre, celles-ci orientant le lecteur vers une certaine interprétation socio-politique.
Key words
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An interesting survey published in 1906, I libri più letti dal popolo italiano (The books most read
by Italians), revealed that women read more than men. In particular, the survey showed that upper class
women read Fogazzaro, Matilde Serao, Marchesa Colombi, Neera, Anna Vertua Gentile, women belonging to the lower-middle class appreciated Elisabeth Werner, Elisabeth Marlitt and Wilhelmina Heimburgh, while lower class women read novels in instalments including those written by Invernizio. Moreover, workers were considered good readers, especially tailors, milliners and lingerie workers. This survey is confirmed also by the titles of Invernizio’s novels, where, apart from the characters belonging to the upper class or aristocracy, there are protagonists belonging to the lower classes, as attested by titles like L’orfana del ghetto (The Orphan
of the Ghetto) (1887) and La figlia del barbiere (The Barber’s Daughter) (1899), Il figlio dell’anarchico (The Anarchist’s Son) (1902) and Cuore d’operaio (Worker’s Heart) (1909). So both the female and the ‘popular’
audiences were increasing considerably:1 thanks to instalments and novels available at a very low price, canards
illustrés and leaflets,2 the publishing industry was slowly giving shape to the modern-culture industry.3
All, or most of the authors cited in the survey, had (or were destined to have) a publisher in common, namely Adriano Salani, who was active in Florence from 1862 and among the most important Italian publishers directed at ‘popular’ audiences: he soon understood that if the ‘common people’ had no money to buy a beautifully bound and printed book, or even simply a newspaper, they would, however, if wisely led, buy shrewdly illustrated booklets.4 The great intuition of Adriano Salani was to immediately understand that a large part of the success of feuilleton in France, and instalments in Italy, was due to illustrations which could captivate the audience. So he did not hesitate to use covers that would attract potential buyers. To this end, he commissioned the leading artists-illustrators of the time, among whom were Chiostri, Anichini (Ezio and Giuseppe), Costetti, Cavalieri (Maria and Luigi), and Minardi.
The illustrators created engaging pictures, some of them defined by a photographic slant derived from newspaper images, which highlighted the disturbing and mysterious sides of the plot and also emphasized morbid scenes, with the aim of exciting the curiosity of the readers. Murders, winking women, scenes of jealousy, duels, passionate kisses, everything was reflected on the covers and illustrations of the “Biblioteca Salani economica” and “Biblioteca Salani Illustrata”, projecting the viewer into a world of elegant clothes and forbidden effusions. A visual narrative that supported and sometimes replaced the text imposed itself: the illustrations were much more than a mere ‘figurative kit’, and became a laboratory of artistic reflection, ready to receive, accept and elaborate pictorial and visual forms. They could also serve as an ‘advertising medium’
1 Concerning the emergence of a new public in Italy (and particularly a “female” one), see Palazzolo, Le donne e la lettura; Soldani and Turi, Fare gli italiani. As for the concept of “popular” see the works of Geneviève Bollème; Chartier and Lüsebrink, Colportage
et lecture populaire; Mollier, La Lecture et ses publics à l’époque contemporaine.
2 There is a really extensive French bibliography about this topic. See Queffelec, Le Roman-feuilleton français; Vareille, Le Roman
populaire français (1789-1914); Jost, Utz and Valloton, Littérature bas de page; Dumasy-Quéffelec, La Querelle du roman-feuilleton; Cachin, Cooper-Richet, Mollier and Parfait, Au bonheur du feuilleton. As for the Italian context, Carolina Invernizio has
been studied above all. See Carolina Invernizio; Bianchini, Il romanzo d’appendice; Arslan Veronese, Dame, droga e galline; Eco,
Carolina Invernizio, Matilde Serao, Liala; Cantelmo, Carolina Invernizio e il romanzo d'appendice; Bacci, Illustrazioni di largo consumo.
3 In Italy, France, Great Britain and Europe more generally, there is a significant development. For the French situation see previous notes, for the English situation see at least McAleer, Popular Reading and Publishing; Hammond, Reading, Publishing and the
Formation of Literary Taste in England. For a (detailed) overview of the Italian situation see Peresson, Editori e librai; Lazzari, Libri e popolo; Fantozzi, Il movimento per le biblioteche popolari; Solari, Produzione e circolazione del libro evangelico; Storia dell’editoria nell’Italia contemporanea.
4 If we look at the figures of literary production in Italy in the last decades of the nineteenth century we can note the general development of each area of knowledge. See Castronovo, La stampa italiana; Tortorelli, L’editoria italiana tra Otto e Novecento; Ragone, Un secolo di libri; Tranfaglia, Storia degli editori italiani.
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for artists, who might decide to replicate an image of their most famous paintings; a sort of postcard serving to promote their art.
The image, even if of low quality, became the publisher’s vehicle, conveying his message whilst remaining faithful to the written text, enhancing it with a certain liveliness and expressiveness: text and image cooperated both in ‘news books’ and novels, in order to clarify the episodes described, creating situations in which the limits between truth, falsehood, and likelihood were not easy to disentangle. The images indeed developed a realism in a scrupulously descriptive way which could also achieve a parodic effect, as in the case of the traditional tales of battles between animals.
From colportage literature to canards illustrés, from photography to illustrated periodicals, illustration is a well-developed field of study in France, but much less so in Italy, where the works by Paola Pallottino are still a point of reference.5 In the light of these considerations – which are bound by the new mechanisms of interaction between the popular press, novels and photography–6 the prophetic words of Walter Benjamin and Gisèle Freund about the interaction between image and caption still sound convincing.7 Considering this premise, this study will focus on two novels written by bestselling authors Carolina Invernizio and Elisabeth Werner, both published by Salani.
5 For a discussion of the role of images from a semiotic perspective, see Barillaud, Bièque, Dahlet, Le fait divers; Barthes, Structure du fait divers; Cragin, Murder in Parisian Streets; Kalifa, L’Encre et le sang; Thiesse, Le Roman du quotidien. For photography
see Edwards, Soleil noir. For illustrated books and periodicals see at least Kaenel, Les Périodiques illustrés (1890-1940); Le Men,
L’Illustration. Essais d’iconographie; Sillars, Visualisation in Popular Fiction 1860 – 1960; Stead and Védrine, L’Europe des revues (1880-1920); Védrine, Le Livre illustré européen au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles.
6 See for instance Blanc, Fabre, Le Brigand de Cavanac; Di Bella, Mythe et histoire dans l’élaboration du fait divers; Perrot, Fait
divers et histoire au XIXe siècle; Kalifa, Usages du faux. Fait divers et roman criminel au XIXe siècle.
7 Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica; Freund, Fotografia e società.
Fig.1: E. Werner, Buona fortuna! Firenze:
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It is certainly true that we are dealing with two books which are different literary objects, since one is the translation of a German novel (Elisabeth Werner, Good Luck!).8 So, setting aside the conceptual issue of translation itself, we will focus on the text-image relationship, at the expense even of the illustrators (who is unidentified in the case of the German novel).
Narratives, seen as a field of fiction par excellence, are the primary expression of a society and of a cultural environment. Indeed if booklets of few pages, written for a wide circulation, and sold at a low price, addressed readers through the successful cooperation between pictures and words, it is even more exciting to see how the figurative system could interact with a more elaborate text. The novels discussed in this paper address two issues that were much debated at the time: the mines and the exploitation of child labor. The goal here is to see how the images could influence and direct the understanding of texts which deal with social and current issues.
In Buona fortuna! Elisabeth Werner develops two parallel plots which merge at the end: on the one hand, the conflicts and turmoil of the workers opposed to the owner Arturo Berkow, on the other the sentimental events, as befits a proper feuilleton, with Arturo and his wife Eugenia Windeg (an aristocrat) as protagonists. The marriage between the two was indeed organized solely out of mutual interest: the noble family is thus able to pay off its debts with the money of the rich bourgeois who, in return, forms a relationship with a prestigious family, with the prospect of a title. If Arturo’s father is ambitious and unscrupulous, Arturo himself is upright and honest, and he is initially unaware of all the machinations to force Eugenia to accept him as her husband. In this way, he has unexpectedly to face the ostentatious contempt of the woman, who, in turn, becomes the object of desire of Ulrico Hartmann, the foreman’s son, the agent provocateur and instigator of his workmen’s ire. After his father dies in a mining accident, Arturo goes through both a family crisis (bringing him to the brink of divorce), and the strike and revolt of the miners, which he faces with courage and nobility of spirit while Ulrico is suspected of killing the mine owner since he was with him at the time of the accident. As the events get worse, the young heir and now effective owner (after the death of his father) becomes brave and enterprising, progressively forging his character. It is precisely this improvement that convinces his wife to change her mind, refusing to sign the divorce papers prepared by her father (who in the meantime had inherited a large fortune and therefore no longer needed the marriage with Berkow’s family). Instead, she returns to her husband, supporting him during the last days of the struggle against the miners and finally remaining by his side, loved in return, in a happy ending. Obviously, the novel ends in only one possible way; Arturo’s victory, who has become an enlightened ‘ruler’ and open to discussion, and the defeat and death of Ulrico, a stubborn, passionate and impulsive demagogue, but also someone who is fascinating in his fearlessness.
Elisabeth Werner deals with several interesting subjects, such as safety conditions in coalmines, divorce, the relationship between owner and workers. Her paternalistic vision of the world illustrates an awareness of workers’ problems. For example, the presentation of Arturo’s father depicts him as a severe task master who is described in ‘dark tones’ as a character who is devoted only to the accumulation of money, doesn’t care about the living conditions of his miners, remaining indifferent also to the concerns put forward by his son, who is more sensitive to the grievances of the workers. Inevitably, the consequence of such a reactionary attitude is a widespread discontent among the workers, which consequently leads to the riot. It is at this point that the
8 For further details and a specific bibliography concerning the two novels and the editorial-figurative context see Bacci (Le
illustrazioni in Italia and Da Pinocchio a Harry Potter). The images of Spazzacamino are freely available (along with thousands
of original sketches) on the websites of the Archivio Salani project and the Spreading Visual Culture project. For the history of illustration in Italy see Pallottino, Storia dell’illustrazione.
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social and political intent of the book emerges clearly: the author, who, until now, has shared and understood the workers’ demands, depicts them as incapable of having a personal and independent thought, ready to follow the first demagogue sustaining violent and threatening methods. It is precisely by playing on the fear he instills in his colleagues that Ulrico Hartmann is able to build up his power. Ulrico, dimmed by his passion for Eugenia, the only person that he respects, even rejects his father’s suggestions, when he tries to persuade him to adopt a more moderate approach. The figure of Arturo, as a just master who shows understanding towards Ulrico and is prepared to come to terms with the other party, becomes more clearly defined page after page and is supported by the fact that his antagonist is not fired from his mines. Unfortunately, he has to come to terms with the impossibility of a reconciliation, even if he continues to search for a solution that will satisfy everyone. Arturo’s invitation falls on deaf ears and the fight goes on: once more Ulrico, blinded by passion and ambition, breaks into the Berkow home and, having found Eugenia alone, dares to approach her for the first time. But the propitious arrival of Arturo, ready to challenge him with a gun, saves Eugenia. The situation definitely worsens when a small group of strikers, the last ones loyal to Ulrico, go to the master’s house, threatening to attack it unless he releases three workers arrested for having sabotaged mining machinery. But just when Arturo and Ulrico are facing each other, a powerful blast makes all the people run to the mine, from which a dark cloud rises. The workers immediately try to rescue their comrades, but they are slowed down by the damages resulting from their sabotages. Arturo, showing no regard for danger, goes into the mine with Ulrico and succeeds in rescuing all the miners, along with his enemy. The only one to die is Ulrico, who sacrifices his life for Arturo, carrying him to the surface in his arms. The miner redeems himself when he explains the reason for his heroic act to Eugenia: “Why take care of me? He is saved. What need have I to live? Didn’t I tell him? Either him or me! So, when I heard the roar of ruin, I thought of you, your pain and ... and I threw myself onto him, I will die but he will be saved!” (Werner 214, my translation).
The ending is emblematic, with Arturo and Eugenia now leading a peaceful life, having a son, and enjoying the profits of the mines that are now quiet and safe. The novel is then characterized by political and rather ‘passionate’ concerns, which eventually converge to the point where the latter become the cause of the first, considering that Ulrico sees the strike as an instrument of social and affective vengeance against Arturo. As we have seen, however, Elisabeth Werner’s clear social vision remains as she condemns the blind exploitation of mines, industry, and capitalism as an end in itself, emphasizing instead the ‘philanthropy’ and ‘good’ that industrialism can generate when it is sensitive to the needs of the weakest.
With this in mind, it is interesting to see how the illustrator interfaces with the narrative, and the result is quite significant: out of a total of twelve illustrations (not counting the one on the cover which takes up the final one, and the portrait of the author), ten depict Eugenia as a direct or indirect protagonist. This clearly indicates that the artist chooses to focus on the romantic side of the plot, representing the inner struggle of the woman, until she finds peace alongside her husband, who should be considered the real protagonist of the narrative. After all, he is the one who ties the parallel subjects together (the strike and the re-conquest of his wife), allowing Elisabeth Werner to alternate between the different registers of the narrative.
Arturo’s spiritual evolution runs alongside his ‘social’ rise, leading to the final, double, success, as young Berkow is able to wisely manage the immense legacy of his father and to win back his wife’s love. The landscape follows the plot, passing from the dark and threatening tones of the first chapters, to the serenity of the ending. The cover illustration is indeed carefully positioned to close the novel, with the task of communicating a sense of peace and quiet to the reader (see fig. 1). An observer (who has not read the book) could never
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imagine the adventures hidden behind the conquest of this beautiful family scene: a miner is going to work, he tenderly greets his daughter while his wife watches him with another child in her arms. In the background, behind a peaceful forest, one can see the mechanical arm of the mining machinery, while two well-dressed gentlemen, probably one of them the master, stand in the middle ground and behind them a cottage with a smoking chimney. An idyllic landscape, with the owners who can walk safely in the midst of their workers without fear of being attacked. The passage related to the image is significant:
[Before Arturo] [e]verything was based on the system of selfish exploitation, implacable, perfectly conceived to inspire the hate of the workers, and to prevent the prosperity that the economic calculations of the master and his crazy speculations had not allowed him to glimpse. Now his son, with very different and much better qualities, a generous, enlightened, virtuous philanthropist, has created comfort and prosperity around himself, and in return he is blessed and worshipped by everyone, everywhere his name is pronounced. (Werner 215-216, my translation)
The romantic side of the novel similarly stands out in the other illustrations: the first image shows Arturo and Eugenia’s wedding, followed by the representation of the episode in which Ulrico saves the newly-wed couple and falls in love with Eugenia, revealing all the characteristics of a mad, passionate love affair (Fig. 3), after which the illustrator represents the moment of the fierce quarrel between Arturo and his wife.
As we can see, three illustrations are enough to give the reader a clear panorama: a wedding and the odd man out that enters a precarious family situation. The fourth image, which in theory depicts a strike, has its message weakened by focusing on the family confrontation between father and son (Ulrico and his father), and the worried glance of a woman who gives away the signs of falling in love. After this scene there is a series of illustrations dedicated to the inner struggle of Eugenia, passing from her chance encounter with Ulrico in the woods, to the moment of repentance, and on the way back home. The narrative-figurative sequence is closed by the confrontation between Arturo and Ulrico, with the latter being threatened by his master, who reached maturity and now shows a brave and fearless spirit and is finally able to protect his wife. She now totally relies on him, shelters behind him, for the first and only time in the course of the entire visual narrative.
The illustrator chooses a precise storyline (the romantic side of the story) for his images and keeps to it until the end, devoting only the final illustration to the theme of the mine. Evidently the publisher considered the references to strikes and riots too risky and wanted to avoid dangerous misunderstandings of the text. Hence, the illustrations of Buona fortuna! prove the persuasive power ascribed to illustration as a means
Fig.3: E. Werner, Buona fortuna! Firenze: Salani 1922. Internal illustration.
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capable of directing the reaction to the text. The choice to give priority to the sentimental plot also reveals some interesting data as to the target audience, mostly made up of middle-class women, who preferred to read stories and see images depicting intimate dramas and inner struggles and not popular protests and uprisings.
Having concluded the analysis of the first novel, we can now turn to the second, Spazzacamino, by Carolina Invernizio, with illustrations by Adriano Minardi (see Fig. 2).
The image of the chimneysweep depicting a child with a rucksack and dirty and tattered clothes in the middle of a road had already appeared on the cover of booklets sold at 5 cents. Of course, if Carolina Invernizio had wanted to carry out social criticism, she would not have lacked models, both in painting and literature. In particular, in March 1906 an article written by Cordelia, titled “Nel paese degli spazzacamini” (“In the land of chimneysweeps”), accompanied by “11 artistic photographs”, had appeared on Il Secolo XX (The 20th Century), a monthly magazine published by Treves (see Fig. 4). After describing the life led in the
native village in the mountains, playing and jumping from one place to the other, Cordelia writes bitterly of the new conditions of life that those children find in the city, where they are subjected to various kinds of bullying and harassment, lost in a new urban environment totally unknown to them. She then goes on to ask:
Who knows what thoughts pass through their little heads, seeing the crowd of happy people, well-dressed men, […] the lovely ladies adorned with gems, as beautiful as a Madonna, sitting around well-laden tables, resplendent with lights, flowers and silverware! [...] Perhaps that view will suggest the idea of the injustice of the world to them and will give rise to the germ of future rebellions. Or perhaps, on the contrary they do not think anything and they just have fun, acting as if they were on a theater stage. (Cordelia 186, my translation)
The long quotation, focusing on the poor conditions of the children, is necessary as Carolina Invernizio adopts a totally different point of view, concentrating on the adventures of the protagonist and deliberately ignoring social problems. Returning to Cordelia’s observations, the question the author raises, that is whether the young chimneysweeps would conceive of “the idea of the injustice in the world” planning future revolts, gets an answer from the full page illustration alongside (see Fig. 4). At the top, in a small box,
one can see a mountain forest immersed in a fog, which maybe inhospitable for citizens, but is quiet and inviting for children who will be catapulted in a chaotic city that is profoundly different from their village.
The contrast is made clear through the combination of the photograph of the mountain and that of the sad and lonely child, standing in front of a restaurant or a grocery store. At this point, we can just imagine, beyond the glass, one of those “well-laden tables” cited in the article, and the reference to the famous painting
A Hungry Man reflecting or Social Contrasts by Emilio Longoni (1894) becomes clear. In the pointillist work,
Fig.4: Cordelia, Nel paese degli spazzacamini, “Il Secolo XX”, March 1906. Internal illustration.
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a shivering child is looking at a couple seated in a luxurious restaurant, through the windows fogged up from the heat of the interior. Later in the same year, Reflections of a Hungry Man was reproduced in the special issue for the 1st of May (see Fig. 5) of the magazine Lotta di Classe (Class struggle), accompanied by a text of social protest signed by “a passerby” (perhaps Pompeo Bettini or Gustavo Macchi).
The author imagines a dialogue between the couple inside, complaining that they ate too much and, not being hungry anymore, they send back a steak: they are now satiated, partly because, as they state, “we ate lobster for dinner tonight”. (Un passante—unpaginated). The hungry man observes the scene and thinks about revenge and social injustice, being himself unemployed and not having eaten for a long time. After the publication of this article, censors ordered the closure of the magazine and Longoni himself was indicted for “inciting class hatred”.9 The choice of the picture and of the accompanying text, in Il Secolo XX, could therefore not be neutral, but it had to be assumed, for the readers of the time, as a clear reference to a work and a well-known story.
Even if the theme of the chimneysweep could be addressed in a complex and critical way, as in Cordelia’s article, Carolina Invernizio fails to comment on the exploitation of children, choosing instead to focus on the side of adventure and on the fairytale imagery.
A fatherless child called Rampichino is the protagonist of the novel (see Fig. 2): his mother, “Mom Cabel”, reluctantly lets him go to work as a chimneysweep for the winter season in Turin. Carolina Invernizio particularly stresses the colorful aspects and deepens the fairy-tale figure of the chimneysweep, but also depicts the ‘master’ as a positive character. Indeed: “I’m not a ‘mangiabambini’, a ‘child eating’ man, a violent man, a disguised bear! The kids entrusted to me are safe, I treat them as if they were my own children, I feed them and I don’t even beat them...” (Spazzacamino 6, my translation).
By writing in such a way, Invernizio wants to reassure the readers that they will not be reading a book of social enquiry: she is just using the chimneysweep as a pretext to describe a series of adventures, which
9 See Hansmann and Seidel, Pittura italiana; and Arte e socialità.
Fig. 5: E. Longoni, Riflessioni di un affamato (Hungry man reflecting), 1894. Reproduced on the special 1st May issue 1894 of «Lotta di Classe», accompanied by a text signed by “un passante”.
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Rampichino, in a city full of dangers, will be able to successfully overcome. The volume is presented as a typical Bildungsroman: firstly, the little chimneysweep gets into the good books of a countess and her daughter of the same age, before being kidnapped by a gang of thugs who are planning a robbery, but in turn they are deceived by the child who succeeds in getting them arrested, with the help of his friend Pallottola. The two, Rampichino and Pallottola, will manage to fulfill their dreams thanks to the aid of the Countess: Pallottola will be a happy shepherd in his beloved, Arcadian mountains, and Rampichino will be studying in the city, after the countess and her daughter are able to convince him and his mother to remain in the town. Carolina Invernizio addresses several issues of great interest, revealing once again a well-defined ideological line, based, first of all, on the respect for hierarchies, and then on a moderate self-helpism, founded on the capacity to tolerate injustices. For example, Rampichino and his mother accept their magnanimous hosts’ offer only because they are forced to, and not guided by a desire for social climbing.
In this sense the passage where little Maria, the Countess’s daughter, urges Rampichino to accept the proposal to move to the city to study, is illuminating as it highlights the distance between the ‘painted’, ideal image and the real, actual chimneysweeps:
A job that I would not do for all the gold in the world,—Maria interrupted the Countess with an adorable glance—climbing like cats along the chimneys, always having black face and hands! You should know how ugly you are, when you are covered in soot! I would be scared to touch you. When you are weighed down with a rucksack and work tools on your shoulders, I cannot even see you. A friend of mine was right in saying: chimneysweeps are nice to see in pictures or in paintings or in film movies, but do not approach them. (Spazzacamino 190, my translation)
To achieve better positions, however, as Invernizio suggests on several occasions, the poor man must remain in his place and never have temptations of uprising. Pallottola succeeds in getting his mountain hut because he “managed to remain good and honest in spite of misfortunes; goodness and honesty, my little boy, have their reward sooner or later” (Invernizio 195, my translation). While in front of Rampichino who tells his friend not to go home to the punishment inflicted by his adoptive parents, the “wise” mother replies:
Nice tip!—Mom Cabel said—You would teach him how to rebel. No, no, even if master Titta and Zenaide [the adoptive parents] don’t deserve any respect, Pallottola owes them respect and obedience in any case.—Well said mom Cabel!—Said both the countess and Mrs. Duponti, adding:—In fact, these days he needs to be more submissive than ever, waiting for the events that, I’m sure, will be positive. (Spazzacamino 217, my translation)
The corollary of a similar, moderate, approach is of course the description of a bucolic countryside, where it is possible to lead an Arcadian life, capable of giving strong health to the little countess who is weakened by a tiring city life: “After a week, Maria ran happily through the meadows, together with Grillina and other small shepherdesses, drank the milk of goats that were milked specially for her, and her cheeks had become more red and her eyes brighter, much to the contentment of her mother.” (Spazzacamino 199, my translation).
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dreamy visions. So, sitting on top of the roofs, Pallottola and Rampichino are surrounded by a soft evening light with the view opening up on the gorgeous landscape. Minardi perfectly translates this atmosphere with delicate and poetic images, softly outlined with mellow and soft watercolours, as in the case of the two soot-covered chimneysweeps, who dominate the roofs of Turin, with the Mole in the distance: a detail which is also present in a second image with Rampichino sticking out from a chimney.
There are not many images that directly depict the chimneysweeps: one is the header of the fourth chapter that portrays the two friends shouting in the streets, while the other two are colour plates. The first one depicts the mothers greeting their children, while the second one is devoted to the chimneysweeps’ Christmas party: the party is arranged by the countess, and the gaudy clothes of the women, one in purple and the other in white, contrast with the patchy clothes of the children and their ‘master’. Most of the illustrations are of course related to the adventures of Rampichino, now a victim of his kidnappers and disguised as a little girl, and able to capture them. We see him arrested by the police, engaged in an elegant dinner by the Countess, in conversation with the little countess, and carried in the arms of the Fate-Fortune goddess. It is precisely the fantastic and fictional element combined with the realistic one that constitutes the strong appeal of the illustrations, with Minardi aptly switching between the two registers, presenting sad scenes of emigrants, unspoiled villages or forests ravaged by the fire, and then the serene portraits of the protagonists.
Other illustrations reveal a different stylistic direction, far from the Invernizio style, such as the final illustration of chapter twelve which depicts the arrest of the criminals: the policemen, outlined as grotesque caricatures, hold open a giant mousetrap, giving the scene a fantastic visual power, foreign to the written text. The figurative vitality, however, is confirmed in other details, such as the end of the ninth chapter with a lantern that illuminates the keys and a bar, or the end of chapter twenty-two, with the Fate-Fortune goddess hand in hand with Rampichino, or even the end of chapter twenty-one where a hand is holding a dim candle. Ultimately, the images succeed in giving depth to an old-fashioned and mentally backward text that otherwise would have lost much of its ability to convince.
It is interesting now to focus on two images in order to highlight the figurative culture of the illustrator. The first one depicts the emigrants leaving the pier. The reference to the paintings on similar subjects by Raffaello Gambogi and Angiolo Tommasi is clear, with the classic quotation of the ‘melancholy’ woman lost in her thoughts. The second one is a divertissement, with the revival of the famous trio of Pinocchio carted away by two carabinieri, contrasting with the severe and massive figures of the men against the silhouettes of the small children. Nonetheless, Minardi also drew inspiration from photographs published in popular periodicals, as evidenced by the realism and dynamic impetus of the image showing the adoptive parents of Pallottola who are thinking of getting rid of him, ignoring the fact that there’s a dog in place of the child’s body in the bundle. Minardi adopts a bottom-up point of view, emphasizing the heaviness of the body and the effort of the gesture, composing a group (that is, the couple) of a perfect chiastic order, balancing the opposite movements of the man and the woman.
In conclusion, it is possible to say that, through the analysis of two best-selling novels published in Italy, some key issues concerning the reactions to texts and images have been highlighted: that is the relationship between writing and illustration, the one between author and illustrator, but also the one between volume, images and readers, seeing how the images could, from time to time, agree or disagree with the written text, covering a vital role in the area of reception, directing the reader toward a specific socio-political interpretation. As stated at the beginning of this paper, the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century was
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indeed a period of cultural transition, during which serial novels, chronicles, magazine covers but also imaginary illustrations paradoxically based on photographs, played a vital role. Giovanna Ginex studied the influence of photography on the illustrations of Achille Beltrame for La Domenica del Corriere, while Paola Pallottino analyzed the case of Alberto Della Valle, the illustrator of Salgari novels, in her interesting study
L’occhio della Tigre. Della Valle never moved from his studio and his illustrations of tigers and ferocious
assaults, duels to death and desperate rescues, were based on photographs of models taken on the terrace of his house and kitchen, balanced on ladders and unsafe chairs, transforming bourgeois and comic tableaux vivants into exciting and mysterious adventures. At the same time, there was a juxtaposition of famous paintings guiding the photojournalist, triggering a game of cultured winks at the reader who had to recognize the image.
Once again we come across the ambiguous interplay of reality and fantasy, fiction and realism, which characterized the early twentieth century in Italy. It is significant that we should find both the documentary photographs by Capuana and Verga (like Zola in France) and the retouched photographs used to illustrate a tale like La villa delle Fate by the omnipresent Carolina Invernizio. Far from exhausting the subject, this paper, therefore, merely ambitions to open windows on this field of study, and particularly that of illustrations.
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Giorgio Bacci is currently Research Fellow in History of Contemporary Art at Scuola Normale Superiore in
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periodicals, archives and illustrations (www.capti.it), financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. He has recently curated the exhibition Un’immagine sorprendente: Paladino tra arte e letteratura (2015) and he is the author of the book (Italian / English text) La parola disegnata: il percorso di Mimmo
Paladino tra arte e letteratura / The drawn word: Mimmo Paladino’s path between art and literature (2015).
He was the curator of the exhibition and editor of the related catalogue From Pinocchio to Harry Potter:
150 years of Italian Illustrations from Salani Archive 1862-2012 (2012), linked to the project concerning the
illustrations and illustrators of the publisher Salani (http://www.artivisive.sns.it/ archivio_salani.html). He published numerous essays and articles and was the co-editor of two volumes (2009, 2014) dedicated to the periodical Emporium (1895-1964); he is the author also of Le illustrazioni in Italia tra Otto e Novecento.
